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The Kappa In Japanese Folklore

Kappas are legendary creatures that inhabit the rivers and waterways of Japan. They have beaked noses, shells on their back and a depression on their heads that holds water. Kappa are mischievous troublemakers. Their pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as loudly passing gas or looking up women's kimonos, to the more troublesome such as drowning swimmers and eating children. They feed on their victims by sucking their liver though their anus. They love cucumbers and if you write your name on a cucumber and throw it in the river, the kappa may be appeased by your gift and allow you to swim in peace.

October 2011

October 27, 2011

At a city-wide garage sale event last summer I wasn't finding much until towards the end when I was delighted to find these little dolls in a jumbled box of odds and ends and plastic toys. I was even happier to find out the owner wanted only a few dollars for them.

Little kokeshi nodders. The girl has a big chip out of her hair but they are otherwise in good condition.

Even better, they are nesting dolls.

This is a book and record set I got in the same lot of books as the paper dolls in my last post. Unfortunately I no longer have a working turntable, but it's still pretty cute.<p>

The illustrations are clearly European and from her shoes maybe Dutch? I like how she is clearly bringing a bottle of wine to poor sick Grandma.

October 26, 2011

I bought a couple sets of paper dolls off of Ebay last week--from some other pictures I'd seen on the internet, it appeared it was likely they were actually reproductions but they were still cute enough that I decided to bid on them.

When I received them it was pretty clear that they were indeed modern reproductions but I'm still happy with them:

A few months ago I had won another set that was in lot with some other Japanese books. This one probably is from the 1950's based on the clothing styles and is really adorable

I saw on another blog where someone created a garland with paper dolls by clipping them to twine with tiny clothespins and I'm wondering about displaying mine that way--but I'd have to punch out the clothes and I'm not sure I'd rather leave them intact.